Following are the highlights from the fourth day of St. Louis Cardinals minor league games in spring 2011, on Saturday, March 19. Due to the major league split squad games, Memphis and Springfield did not play. Palm Beach and the two Quad Cities teams all played their Florida counterparts on the Marlins’ side of the complex. After the 2-1 day, the Cardinals system is a combined 6-6-3 this spring.
Today’s photo is of Player of the Day Zach Russell.
On Sunday, the Cardinals have another camp day. The top two teams will play each other as will Palm Beach and Quad Cities. For the full state of minor league spring training schedules, The Cardinal Nation subscribers can click here.
As he has been doing the last few seasons, Cardinals farm director John Vuch is sharing game highlights with this site and several others with interest in Cardinals prospects. As always, the raw data is his, but the comments mine.
Palm Beach 6, Jupiter 5
Palm Beach pitching
Apparently to get some work, Memphis reliever Adam Reifer was given the start. He fanned one in his inning of work.
Richard Castillo, who pitched for Palm Beach last year, went two innings and fanned one and yielded just one hit.
Andrew Moss yielded two runs in two innings and Justin Smth fared even worse, giving up three earned runs in 1 1/3 frames.
Nick Greenwood fanned four in 1 2/3 innings and Matt Frevert bookended Reifer with an identical outing, but also earned the save.
Palm Beach hitting
Nick Longmire had a pair of singles and scored once in four at-bats.
Francisco Rivera was on base twice with a single and a base on balls.
Alan Ahmady doubled, walked and scored.
Edgar Lara, a young man that has the physical appearance of a player, hit a long two-run home run.
Quad Cities #1 6, Greensboro 5
Quad Cities #1 pitching
Anthony Ferrera started and yielded all five Greensboro runs on eight hits and two walks in 1 2/3 innings. He did fan two.
Zach Russell came in next and collected seven outs without allowing a baserunner. He collected five groundouts and two strikeouts.
Justin Edwards had a pair of scoreless frames and Cale Johnson, Chase Reid and Dean Kiekhefer (two strikeouts) each spun a shutout inning.
Quad Cities #1 hitting
Romulo Ruiz and Jonathan Rodriguez singled, doubled and walked. Ruiz crossed the plate twice and Rodriguez scored the game-winner on a passed ball.
Matt Valaika singled, doubled and drove in one.
Adam Melker singled and walked twice.
Victor Sanchez doubled, walked, scored and had an RBI.
Chrisr Edmondson singled and plated two.
Virgil Hill singled, walked and scored.
Jamestown 9, Quad Cities #2 5
Quad Cities #2 pitching
Hector Hernandez started and fanned two in his two innings.
Boone Whiting yielded five runs in his 1 2/3 frames on five hits and a walk.
Scott Bittle, coming off shoulder surgery, allowed four baserunners, three of whom scored in just 2/3 of an inning.
Wilson Matos gave up six hits and two runs in 2 1/3 innings.
Drew Benes finished with a one-hit inning.
Quad Cities #2 hitting
Steven Ramos had three singles, a double, and an RBI on a sacrifice fly in five plate appearances.
Roberto DeLaCruz doubled and collected a pair of RBI
Ross Smith had a pair of singles in four at-bats.
German Medina singled, walked, scored and plated two.
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Edgar Lara got $250K to sign in 2005. The first bonus baby for the reinvigorated Latin program.
Roberto Delacruz collected huge bucks. Luhnow set preposterous expectations that Roberto could begin at Johnson City. Maybe he will get there two summers later. He might do well. I like products of San Pedro de Macaris.
I noticed that QC#2 played Jamestown, which is a NYPenn squad. I know its just mostly names given to camp squads at this point.
Quik quiz:
Who will throw more innings for the Nationals and Riggleman in 2011?
Ultra pricey Boras bonus baby Stephen Strasburg or Rule 5 draftee from the Cards Broderick?
Extra credit: what was Broderick’s signing bonus?
Double extra credit question: who landed the biggest signing bonus from the generous Jeff Luhnow: Matt Carpenter, Stephen Hill, or Randy Roth?
Freese now predicted to play 140 games. See you in Memphis Mr. Carpenter.
http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110319&content_id=17028662¬ebook_id=17028664&vkey=notebook_stl&c_id=stl
And Brian’s link also
http://stlcardinals.scout.com/a.z?s=321&p=9&c=2&cid=1057272&nid=5380550&fhn=1
I remember when Matt Clement was going to be in the rotation.
And when TLR thought Rolen did not need another operation.
Its clever of Mo and TLR to try to squueze more games out of Freese. If Freese survives, they look good. But Freese hurts himself again, its Freese’s fault. Heads they win, tails he loses.
Meanwhile Carpenter trains at Memphis and is just a phonecall away, in the event Freese goes down for the third year in a row.
Does German Medina = David Medina?
Yes. His given name is German and he goes by his middle name David.
Perplexing why Kelly is still in camp.
Amazing that those 10 runs all started with the bases empty and 2 outs.
If Augenstein gets the long man roll, does the short guy go to Salas or Batista?
It’s not possible to do any more than Salas has done, there wouldn’t be any other rookie on the staff and he’s on the roster, so I’d give him the edge.
Batista and lefty Gast have looked great too.
Gast actually hasn’t been that good. He’s given up 15 base runners in 6.1 innings. He’s been able to prevent the long ball and also picked some guys off that has saved him but his overall pitching hasn’t been that good with lots of hits and more walks than K’s.(though better than one might expect for his experience).
Sanchez has pitched just as well as Salas.
Matt Carpenter, Augenstein, Sanchez, and Lynn can all be stationed at Memphis to provide reinforcements.
Ten runs all with two outs. And no homers. Holy cow. And it was two out nobody on.
McClellan showed how to get through five without his best stuff.
Yeah, his breaking ball wasn’t working at all.
McClellan was facing Boston’s starters too.